U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-6th, is asking for an audit of ACORN's use of federal funds over the past 10 years, keeping the pressure on the embattled anti-poverty community group.

Gerlach, also a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, sent the letter signed by 27 other Republicans Monday to the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the source of ACORN's federal funding. The group has received more than $53 million in federal money over the past 15 years.

That funding has been jeopardized after two conservative activists filmed themselves posing as a pimp and prostitute and getting housing and tax advice from ACORN employees in various field offices of the organization.

ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"The American taxpayers deserve to know how their hard-earned dollars that this organization received were used and for what specific purpose," Gerlach wrote.

Republicans have been after ACORN for years, arguing that the group, through its voter registration efforts, is a partisan organization. Several employees have been arrested on charges of falsifying voters applications in the build-up to last year's election. The Census Bureau cut its ties with the organization this month.

The House and Senate, meanwhile, have voted to deny federal funds to the group in recent days.

Pressure, though, is unlikely to let up. The GOP has successfully seized on an issue that has put some Democrats on the defensive.

Current Comments

Gerlach and Co. already have ten years worth of audit infromation on ACORN [or any other Federally-funded agency] at their fingertips, since annual audits are built into the Federal grants process. So the public record is there and certainly available to a public elected official. But Gerlach would rather grandstand and demand an expensive special audit be undertaken instead of turning on his computer and getting the answers he says he wants for himself. What a joke!

Posted By: Old Grouch | Sep 22, 2009 2:14:54 PM

Isn't Alan Jennings and the Community Action Council of the Lehigh Valley doing the same things that ACORN was doing.

It is time to investigate the abuses of CACLV.

Posted By: Interested Taxpayer | Sep 22, 2009 8:49:45 PM

don't you think an "official" audit of Acorn would provide more of a basis and legal standing if more actions are to be taken against them? Why would anyone waste their time with public records alone just to have them investigated for thoroughness and clarity in the end

Posted By: Kevin Tompkins | Oct 4, 2009 7:10:13 AM

Any time you have an organization like Acorn, with so many offshoots beneath it, taking taxpayer money...you are going to have corruption. You would think we would learn our lesson as history would teach. Investigate them and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law... period

Posted By: Kevin Tompkins | Oct 21, 2009 7:13:16 AM

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